Impacto de um programa odontológico na qualidade de vida relacionada à saúde bucal de bebês

Abstract

The oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) questionnaires with clinical examination generate indicators that allow us to evaluate how oral conditions affect the physical, psychological and social domain. The aim of this study was to evaluate the perception of parents/guardians about the OHRQoL of preschool children (0-36 months) insert in dental program in a school clinic; as well as impact of the sociodemographic characteristics, and caries disease, and of symptoms and signs during primary teeth eruption in themselves. We invited to participate the babies and their parents/guardians who attended the dental clinic of babies of the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul in the year 2017. Then, we inserted the babies in the program and clinically evaluated. Was used the International Caries Detection and Assesment System (ICDAS) for the evaluation of caries disease. Parents/guardians responded to the Brazilian version of The Early Childhood Oral Health Impact Scale (B-ECOHIS) previously to the program, and again, one to three months after the end of the program's protocol. Final sample n= 70. We converted the ICDAS into dmft index for statistical analysis. At the beginning of the program, 10% of babies still had no teeth erupted in the oral cavity. Of the remaining, more than 50% were caries-free, 15% had active initial lesions (dmft = 0, ICDAS = 1 or 2) and approximately 22% presented cavities lesions. The mean ECOHIS score was 6.01 (SD = 4.55) at baseline and 3.63 (SD = 4.04) at the end, Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test, representing a significant reduction of approximately 60% (p < 0.001). There was also a significant reduction in the score of the domains: symptoms (p = 0.036), psychological aspects (p <0.001) and parental distress (p = 0.002). Socioeconomic characteristics and caries experience did not represent a significant influence on the oral health-related quality of life of the babies. On the other hand, there was a significant association with the signs and symptoms of during primary teeth eruption (p <0.05), Mann-Whitney test. We conclude that there was an improvement in the OHRQoL of the children after attending the dental clinic of babies.